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GeoFS
GeoFS is a free browser-based multiplayer online flight simulator created by Xavier Tassin. It has become famous recently for its stunning performance at the 2019 Flight Simulator Exposition in Orlando, Florida. GeoFS includes 43 aircraft, ranging from the Piper Cub to the Airbus A380. Its community is very strong, and some of the available aircraft have been contributed by other users. There are a few plugins or browser extensions compatible with GeoFS. History GeoFS was released on Friday, 1 October 2010 as GEFS. It was very rudimentary in comparison to the current GeoFS, having only three aircraft, very basic multiplayer and weather, and some sounds and animated parts. GEFS became an instant hit, and Xavier kept rolling out new updates. The Douglas DC-3 was added in Version 0.2, and the physics engine was revised to make it simpler yet more realistic when flying. The Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jet was added in Version 0.3, along with flaps and airbrakes. Version 0.4 was not a major update, but it did improve flight models. Version 0.5 of GEFS added lots of things, ranging from the Sopwith Camel biplane (unfortunately, it was removed in a later update) to multiplayer chat and improved weather engine. Version 0.6 added the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and Major Tom, a hot air balloon, as well as even more improvements to the weather engine. In June 2011, Xavier released some site traffic figures, which showed than over 18,000 unique visitors came to GEFS, many coming more than once. Version 0.7 added the Airbus A380 and the Sukhoi Su-35 as well as a time slider that can set the time of day. Version 0.7.1 added reverse thrust to the A380 and MD-11. Version 0.8 saw the addition of the Concorde, Cessna 152, and Zlin Z-50. It also added runway lights for night flying and an aircraft carrier, which was highly appreciated by the community. Version 0.9 added three gliders and improved dynamic-wind. 2013 had only one update, but Version 1.0 was a huge update, adding autopilot, PAPI lights, an Antonov An-140, and gave users the ability to create accounts. No updates came for three years, but in 2016, GEFS was migrated form Google Earth to CesiumJS, an open-source program that turned out to be far better for GEFS. Versions 1.1 to 1.4 were mostly background updates, but they added features such as shadows, better multiplayer, and a new weather engine. 1.5 released a list of logged-in pilots as well as the number of Foos, or users without accounts, that were flying. GEFS became GeoFS on April 4, 2017. A few months later the Boeing 737-700 was added in a KLM livery. Xavier released an aircraft editor for people to create their own aircraft. In 2018, the growing popularity of GeoFS made it too expensive to provide the standard high-definition Microsoft Bing satellite imagery for free. The imagery was replaced with free but lower definition Sentinel-2 imagery, but the option was made to purchase HD for 10 euros (since Xavier Tassin lives in Europe). Xavier began to make GeoFS easier to maintain in 2018. He made the decision to purchase, process, and host the huge amount of data required to run GeoFS himself. It was a huge project and is still not fully complete. During the 2019 FlightSimExpo in Orlando, GeoFS was one of the innovating flight simulators, and its success was noted by educators. As a free, browser-based program that had no major hardware requirements, it was a godsend for an educator who didn't want to pay hundreds of dollars to get a program with decent flight physics. Version 2.7, also known as the Summer Update due to the huge amount of additions, was released on July 14, 2019. It added the Pitts Special S1, improved the autopilot, and drastically improved the weather engine. This update was considered by many to be one of the biggest updates to GeoFS. Category:Flight Simulators